Re: [9fans] First-timer help

[andrey mirtchovski <mirtchov@cpsc.ucalgary.ca>]

> I've already sent an account request to the Japanese grid; I'll check 
> out the German one as well. 

there's a US "free-for-al"l Plan 9 installation too, which may be closer
to you: http://www.9grid.us

> So, on one of these big installations, the 
> files are better protected, yes?

generally -- yes.  only its owner (the user who started the file
server) can access the administrative "area" on a file server, i.e.
/srv/fscons.  there's only a single point of entry to allow one to
modify files belonging to other users and that is the rather
complicated dance of connecting to /srv/fscons, changing permissions
of a file, disconnecting and then modifying it.

if you feel adventurous you can set up an old-style (ken fs, as they're
called) file server which completely disallows the running of any user
processes.  on such machine there's no way to modify another user's
files unless you're behind the keyboard/console of the machine or the
user changes permissions to allow you to do so.

if you add your user to the group 'sys' you will be able to handle
most daily administrative tasks such as updating the system or
recompiling binaries from sources.  that's why most directories are
group-writable and those bits are extended recursively when creating
new files.

andrey